Microsoft Weekly

Manage multiboot menus

By Ed Bott

When you install a second copy of Windows alongside your current one, Windows creates a boot menu that lets you choose which operating system to run at startup. That boot menu's much more useful if you replace the generic entries with a custom name that clearly describes the installation it represents. There's no question what you're going to get if you choose Windows 10 (Clean) at startup.

Unfortunately, there's no built-in graphical tool to rename entries on a multiboot entry. Instead, you have to open a Command Prompt window and use the Bcdedit command. You can see a full list of switches for this command by typing bcdedit /? But this one's worth memorizing.

To rename the boot-menu entry for the currently running operating system, open a Command Prompt window with administrative rights and use this command:

Bcdedit /set description "Menu text here"

Replace the generic description inside the quotes with a menu entry of your choosing and press Enter. To change descriptions for other items on the boot menu, you can use the long identifier field as a switch. It's easier, though, to just restart using the other OS and then run the Bcdedit command again.

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